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And you thought Republicans' health care bill couldn't get worse

Jun 23 2017 by Kristina Bennett

House and Senate Democrats reacted similarly after Republicans in the upper chamber revealed the first draft of their health care repeal Thursday morning.

The bill caught Democrats by surprise - it was introduced as an amendment to their own bill prohibiting lifetime caps on health insurance coverage, something the ACA, also known as Obamacare, also prohibits.

In short, the Senate version still plans to phase out Planned Parenthood funding for one year. McConnell has only a thin margin of error: The bill would fail if just three of the Senate's 52 GOP senators oppose it.

- Senate debates the bill and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said senators will have an opportunity to offer amendments to add to or change the bill. As stated by Obama, discrimination against based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm once again and millions of families will totally lose cover. But the Senate bill begins phasing out this increased funding starting in 2021 and restoring it to pre-Obamacare levels by 2024.

But Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president at the consulting firm Avalere Health, says the bill bases its tax credits on lower-quality insurance."If you're paying a similar percentage of income, you're getting a less generous product under this new plan", she says. Those who don't have coverage now or lose their coverage and don't find new coverage within 63 days could be forced to pay a penalty if they want to participate in state health care exchanges set up under Obamacare. After that date, expansion would end, and people who enrolled in the expansion could not re-enroll once they leave. "The new Republican bill will give them $110 billion to 'bring down prices.' That is a ludicrous economic theory". Elmendorf said that that aspect of Obamacare was also objectionable but not as consequential as the change from CPI-U to CPI-M in the GOP bill.

HOUSE: The bill would allow the Medicaid expansion to continue until January 1, 2020.

The Senate bill's treatment of insurance premiumsubsidies is tougher to calculate.

Senate Republicans' new health bill cuts taxes by almost $1 trillion over the next decade, mostly for corporations and the richest families in America. Without it, fewer healthy people will buy insurance, which will force premiums up. "I'm going to stay focused on it next week as the bill goes to the Senate floor. and my focus will be on how it affects Tennesseans". Ends cost-sharing subsidies in 2020, while failing to clear up uncertainty about whether they can be paid now.

Before too long, lower-income households would also soon face higher bills for their out-of-pocket costs. The CBO estimated 23 million people would lose insurance under the House health care bill. It allows parents keep their kids on their policies until they turn 26, and requires insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions. Compared with Obamacare, it reduces the income cutoff point from 400 percent of federal poverty to 350 percent.

Obama law: Provides two kinds of subsidies for people who don't have access to coverage on the job.

What will they do about abortion?

Like the House, the Senate wants to eliminate the requirement that large employers offer insurance plans to their workers.

- The Senate bill differs from the House health care measure, so the legislation would have to be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee. Under the House bill, the CBO found that younger people would see savings and older people would pay significantly more.

The House bill would have cut $830 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.